Wan Qiaoru

Wife of former Master Mu Tianmiao and mother of young mistress Mu Xiaokui. As the daughter of Imperial General Wan, she was instrumental in establishing The Order. Bold, peerless in martial skill, and possessing an ambition outstripping any man, she paired her fearless spirit with a sharp intellect.

Possessing physical strength that far surpassed most men, Wan Qiaoru wielded the Iron Queen—a colossal command blade secretly bequeathed to her father by the imperial throne. Forged by a clandestine wing of the Ministry of War, its craft, scale, and sheer mass defied the limits of the age; by channeling her Sha-Qi through its core, the blade would infinitely amplify and release the energy, shattering everything in its path like brittle porcelain.

In return, wielding this command blade demanded immense physical constitution and raw power. Perhaps for this reason, General Wan treated it strictly as a ceremonial imperial boon rather than an actual weapon. That changed when Wan Qiaoru secretly took the blade upon her departure, keeping it by her side until her dying breath—making it the solitary heirloom through which Mu Xiaokui could ever feel her mother's presence.

The daughter of the Imperial Court's Great General Wan, Wan Qiaoru was raised in a prominent military lineage, cultivating a bold, straightforward personality and formidable martial prowess.

How Wan Qiaoru first met Mu Tianmiao has been lost to history. What is certain is her burning desire to shatter the decadent old order and forge a new realm—an ambition that aligned seamlessly with his own. From the very inception of Mu's grand crusade, she stood resolutely at his side, carving out monumental victories for his cause.

Unlike Mu Tianmiao, who calculated every move with cold patience, Wan Qiaoru carried herself with bold grit—yet beneath her fierce demeanor lay a meticulous, razor-sharp mind.

Nothing illustrates this better than the fall of the Myriad Demons Society, a faction that had long plagued Mu Tianmiao's thoughts. Following a year of relentless scheming, he hatched a masterstroke to infiltrate and unravel the cult piece by piece from within.

Mu Tianmiao could no longer remember why he had confided that scheme to Wan Qiaoru, nor what reaction he had anticipated as she listened in silence. Her verdict was blunt: though ingenious and airtight, it lacked true courage—eradicating a ruthless rival like the Wanmo Society never called for such convoluted trickery.

Mu Tianmiao had long pegged Wan Qiaoru as someone prone to swift action without the foresight to match. Wholly unfazed by her bold declarations, he simply brushed them aside with an amused smile.

Little did he imagine that just three days later, Wan Qiaoru would return with gore-spattered silver armor, wind-swept hair, and the severed head of the Wanmo Guild's chieftain in her grasp.

Fearing that such recklessness would invite catastrophic retaliation from the Wanmo Society, Mu Tianmiao started to protest—only for Wan Qiaoru to preempt his dread. The Wanmo Society was already gone, she told him. Knowing they would never yield, she chose to eliminate every trace of future trouble, dynamiting the upstream dams to wash their stronghold away under a torrential sea.

She once told Mu Tianmiao with a smile that a true general needs both valor and cunning; reckless fools are useless, unworthy of standing by his side.

Mu Tianmiao knew full well that the prospect of him and Wan Qiaoru ever growing old together was vanishingly slim. Trapped in a web of lethal conspiracies, their shared fate would almost certainly see one of them cut down early in this merciless world.

He never dreamed that Wan Qiaoru, having stood by him through the Order's inception and the harrowing Dragon Demon War, would ultimately die in childbirth. Martial artists enjoyed robust health, and she was the indomitable daughter of a military house; Mu Tianmiao could never make sense of why fate took her this way.

Tormented by unanswered doubts over the years, the once-unflinching Mu Tianmiao began to suspect karmic retribution at play. The memory never faded: after he imprisoned the Lord of Dark Demon Castle, the lord's wife perished in grief-stricken childbirth. Perhaps fate was mocking him, or perhaps her final, desperate dying curse had finally caught up.

Once he finally resigned himself to Wan Qiaoru's death, the remainder of Mu Tianmiao's days became enveloped in paranoia and vicious scheming—leaving their shared memories as the solitary spark of warmth in his grim existence.